


An Unfortunate Seduction

by bogged



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-18
Updated: 2004-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:44:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogged/pseuds/bogged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Hogwarts, and yet again everyone has fucked themselves over. Written in 2004, so obviously not epilogue compliant.</p><p>(Oh my god, more drug fic. What an ungodly surprise!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unfortunate Seduction

_downtown baby it's a million to one  
you might as well name your poison  
\- shawn colvin, suicide alley_

Malfoy Manor. A fresh summer day. Nine AM.

A bluebird flies past the boarded up window that had, before the war and Harry Potter and families crushed to ruins, allowed a young Draco Malfoy a little box to daydream out of. It gave him roaming hills and cobblestone paths and freshly pruned hedges. As young Master Malfoy grew older and refused food until the "young" was dropped, the window transfigured into a spy's most valuable instrument. Through this window he could see the guests at the front gate before his parents greeted them at the door, and then he would run downstairs and make bets with the other pureblood children about who would be next to arrive. He always won.

Today, if Draco were to look out his bedroom window—or enter his bedroom at all—he would not see hills and paths and hedges. He would spy no guests in richly tapered robes awaiting entrance into his home. He couldn't run down the stairs, careful not to stomp too loudly, and play cruel games on his friends. He could not win every time.

Today, Draco Malfoy sits quietly in the room that's suffered the least damage: Narcissa's tea room. Draco positions himself between the delicate pieces of china, each and every one of them broken beyond recognition. He mistakenly uses a tea kettle as a cup and a sugar bowl as a saucer. There is no tea, only boiled water. He blows the steam away mindlessly. His thoughts are somewhere else completely and no place tangible all at once.

A charred piece of red velvet drapery is lying across his lap as a napkin, and his back is straight against the wall. The chairs were destroyed, so he sits cross-legged on the floor. Despite the lack of proper equipment, he feels poised and proper. He feels his mother gazing through the solid concrete and over his shoulder, silently telling him that he may not like doing these things, but rich, pureblood families have tea parties and have always had them, so he had better just learn to deal with it. He feels his father, who would be sitting across the room chomping on a biscuit, unbelievably bored. He feels something familiar. He feels responsibility to uphold tradition and value. After all, if there were no Azkaban or Dementors with their Kisses, if there were no wizards that weren't purebloods, this is most likely what he'd be doing, except with unbroken china and silk napkins and chairs.

There would be no debris strewn across every square inch of the Manor. The ceiling would be completely intact and, if it were as nice a day as it looked, the windows would've been cracked open to let in the scent of the roses that used to be planted below every pane of glass on the first floor.

Another bluebird lands on the ledge on the other side of the tea room's boarded up bay window, and turns out not to be a bluebird at all, but a new species of woodpecker discovered by an elderly Muggle scientist two days before Harry Potter blasted half of the universe into complete oblivion. Nearly _all_ of Draco's universe, should specifics be involved. And so the bluebird that is actually a woodpecker tap-tap-taptaptaps on the wooden boards. It pecks so long and so hard that it takes Draco fifteen full minutes to realize that the tapping is now much further away and far more irregular.

Someone is at the door.

-:-

There had always, _always_ been jokes and snickers about what sorts of messed up things Harry Potter would get himself hooked on after the war, but Harry had never thought himself weak enough to actually cave in and prove them right.

And yet, here he leans against a rotting wall in a warehouse basement, sniffing coke lines off of an old piece of china with a bunch of Muggles he's never seen before, and a few he sees too often. One of the latter wraps an arm around Harry's neck and starts kissing it. He shoots a glance at a tall, black man across the room that comes the closest to being a companion. The man nods. Harry pulls a butcher's knife out of his red track coat's inside pocket and secures the man giving him a hickey to the wall.

Everyone gasps and shouts and Harry hears a couple gun safeties click off, but he quickly explains that it was rumoured this dead corpse had once belonged to an undercover officer. They all seem to think that's okay, then, and the safeties click back on.

-:-

Draco doesn't bother answering the door, figuring anyone who wants in that badly would just come inside. He clutches the broken tea kettle tightly with his left hand. His right flops around, feeling for a wand long since broken worse than the crumbling china.

Eventually, the knocking stops. Testily, the doorknob is pushed in. The walls moan and drop their dust and Draco is near positive the entire Manor is about to fall in on itself, but the door opens and the walls remain standing and, even if for a moment, Draco feels as though things are back to working like normal.

He doesn't recognize the man, right away. Eventually his memory, fine tuned by his father to remember the tiniest details and remember them well, recognizes the beady, yellowed eyes of the executioner who almost killed that fucking hippogriff his third year. The man doesn't see Draco until he stands up, and when he does his countenance changes radically. His back hunches and his gaze averts and his fingers stop twitching for something to steal.

He convinces Draco of three things: one, Draco should let him stay as there's probably nothing left to pilfer and he was just curious what the inside looked like, anyway; two, yes, in fact, they should sit down for a kettle of hot water; three, with his persuasive talk and his circulatory reasoning, this executioner should've been a con man.

Truthfully, though, the executioner is none cleverer than your average wizard, but Draco is alone—_fully_ alone—for the first time in his life and isn't very well adjusted to this whole thinking for himself thing.

So he believes the aged man when he tells him nearly all the remaining purebloods who know what's good for them have temporarily taken hold in London (this part is halfway true: most of the wizards _have_ shacked up in the Muggle world to get away from the ruin of their own fighting, but only a small handful of them are pureblood and even then it's all very questionable). Draco believes him when he tells fantastic stories of late night meetings to discuss very dark topics. Draco is defensive as the executioner points out he cannot stay in Malfoy Manor forever, that it'll be the death of him, but that he knows a wonderful new employment prospect involving very little work with a large amount of profit. Draco is ashamed to realize this is what he needs.

As the two walk away from the Manor, the executioner keeps Draco's mind off of his disgrace at having to walk anywhere—especially to a Muggle train station—by telling him fantastic stories about a white, magical powder the Muggles sniff up their nose and have been hoarding for themselves. He tells Draco about the co-worker of a co-worker who has a Muggle sister who uses it herself, and he lavishes the effect it has on a person onto Draco.

Draco is astonished and wide-eyed, so much so that the once booming internal voice advising him that he's far better than this now sounds very, very tiny, hardly a whisper. When the executioner tells him his new job in the city involves this magic Muggle powder Draco's feet seem to pick up the pace, walking faster towards dollar signs and easy labour.

He can hardly wait.

-:-

The work is much harder and the pay is much less than Draco was informed it would be, and for that he scowls and bitches and sometimes refuses to do anything. The executioner with the incredible stories became a grungy old man with a tendency to punch people in the jaw only seconds after Draco promised him his life, his mind so befuddled he assumed it would be safe in the old man's hands.

For the first month Draco tries to escape every chance he can get, and for thirty days he goes home spitting blood. He loses three teeth, all bottom ones, trying to run back to the Manor and failing. Inexplicably, though, he feels more alert and his mind clears in ways it hasn't since before the war started.

He even begins to hate Harry Potter, again.

Throughout the second month and most of the third Draco develops an irrational fear of the colour red and refuses to go near the icebox. He shares a two room apartment with the executioner, who reminds him ten times a day that his life is on the line and for all the Malfoy family did to him in the past, Draco at least owes him this.

-:-

The last day of September is unusually cold and the coppers are out in full force. Harry turns into the alley, nicknamed Suicide Alley due to the horrible acoustics (good for deafening death rattles) and low lying, sturdy bars running across it. The economy has been very poor, lately, and Harry has to shove aside at least three bodies in business suits before finding the bloke he came for. He shoves his hands in his pockets and hopes this shit is good, or else the group at the meeting place (for security reasons, proper nouns are never used) will have his head. And maybe his balls, too, just for kicks.

 

Zacharias is doing the wash the next day when he notices red splotches on the collar of Harry's jacket. He asks Harry about them.

"The colours ran in the wash," Harry says, turning the channel on their telly with its stolen cable.

"I haven't washed it yet," Zacharias points out. Harry spins in the frayed, brown easy chair. His eyes can't seem to focus on one object for too long.

"But you've washed it before," he says, slow and firm. "Am I right?"

"Er, well yeah."

Harry's mouth twitches; he puts two fingers against his lips, masking the involuntary movements. He stands up and snatches the red jacket away from Zacharias.

"I'm off for a walk."

-:-

Harry and Draco don't meet until Christmas Eve, and when they do there's ear-splitting shouting and a few badly aimed punches. But after their instincts die out and their muscle memory fades away, they give up. Draco has what Harry wants, and that nagging pain is eating away at his stomach, reminding him that Harry must get what Harry wants.

And Harry wants.

Draco comes to the meeting place, dank and reeking from leaking pipes, and gives pre-packaged bundles of powdered snow to the people. That Christmas Eve, Draco is the hero.

They find a corner to talk in, the cocaine fabricating wonderful and imaginative stories about their lives. At some point, Harry does tell the truth and talk about Zacharias. Draco suggests to Harry that maybe Zacharias is getting in the way, that maybe he might not approve of his little sniffing habit. Harry thinks about nights spent sleeping curled up in the hallway, locked out of his own apartment. Harry wonders if Draco's right.

-:-

Early Christmas morning Harry crawls into bed. He pushes himself against Zacharias, whispers not-so-sweet nothings into his ear. Zacharias elbows him away, and in the state he's in Harry falls off the bed.

Zacharias peers over the edge, his eyebrows furrowed. He blinks a few times and then re-finds that comfortable position he was in.

Harry's passed out on the floor.

Around noon, Zacharias is sure he hears the bedside lamp shatter. He throws down his turkey and cheese on wheat and runs into the bedroom. Harry's standing in the corner, holding the shattered base in front of himself like a wand. He's scratching at the wall and panting, his eyes completely glazed.

Zacharias sees Harry's stomach clench and goes to find a bucket. He finds a lime green one underneath the kitchen sink and throws it into the bedroom. He locks Harry in, himself out.

There are no decorations this Christmas. No gifts, either. No one drops by for a cup of holiday cheer, and not a single flake of snow falls from the sky. The streets are bare and dirty, yelling up at the sky for the snow to cover their faults, to blur them out and lighten the mood, to maybe even cause an accident or two.

But there'll be no such luck this year, you bastard, Zacharias muses as Harry screams from the bedroom. The gimpy Jewish man next door shouts at them through the wall. Zacharias picks up the ornamental clock his mother had given him when he moved out. She'd apologized for the gift, but money had always been low and they bought the gift before he was born, thinking he'd end up a girl.

He throws the clock against the wall. It smashes brilliantly. Glitter and little glass bunnies rain down to the floor like some sort of apocalypse.

-:-

Things are better on New Years, thanks to a good excuse for cheap champagne and mixed nuts doused in ale.

Zacharias and Harry make many toasts, get incredibly drunk, and have a good, hard fuck against the front door. That makes things a little better, as well.

When Zacharias asks, post-coital and trashed, why Harry spazzed out the other day, Harry chalks it up to a very bad fever. When Zacharias doesn't believe him, Harry kicks him in the stomach and packs his things. He sits in the hallway and tries not to vomit.

Zacharias can't bring himself to give enough of a shit until he hears two voices and Harry's red track coat rustling. He opens the door just in time to see a sallow-faced blond crumple it up and throw it down to the other end of the hall, shivering and pointing out that it is red, and therefore disgusting and vile. Harry digs through his things and pulls out a navy blue hoodie; he slings his duffel over his shoulder and shrugs.

"So this is it, then?" Zacharias asks, his hand tightening around the knob until his palm begins to sweat and he loses his balance. "You're really leaving me?"

Harry shrugs again. He pulls the hood up over his face and walks down into the stairwell, crawling with rats. He doesn't look back.

Draco snickers. "I have what he wants."

-:-

They weren't at the Manor and no guests were waiting at the front gate. There were no bets placed between pureblood children on whether or not Harry would leave his heart for his addiction. Still, Draco can sleep easy tonight knowing things are making their way back to normal, because once again _he's_ the boy who's cheated and _he's_ the boy who's won.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Two Lines 2004 challenge: [on livejournal](http://community.livejournal.com/2lineschallenge/20290.html#cutid1).


End file.
